Fat bikes are an evolutionary branch in the cycling world that has been gaining traction for some time now. Early versions were built on a limited basis in the early 1900s, but they didn’t gain commercial popularity until the 1980s when French Cyclist, Jean Naud designed a fat tire tricycle for desert travel. Shortly after his ride across the Sahara, a few Alaskan frame builders began building and designing wider framed bicycles to accommodate two or three wheels that had the rims pined or welded together. Meanwhile, in Mexico designs and prototypes for larger rims and tires were being created to allow guided bike tours on soft beach sands. In late 1999 the Alaskan frame makers started using the wider rims and tires that were developed in Mexico on the Iditarod Trail. In the mid-2000s larger commercial bike companies took note and released fat bikes for the general public. Since then, their popularity has taken off. With more and more bike manufactures creating fat bikes coupled with the popularity of racing and extreme biking events fat bikes have joined main stream bike crowd.
I can see the appeal, you can take them to many different places that other bikes can’t go. They have better grip due to their wide low-pressure tires and they handle better in adverse weather and terrains. In short it opens your cycling to a whole new world. Not just in competition but also in recreation allowing you to casually roll down sandy beaches or snow-covered trails and with the lower pressure in the tires the ride is normally smoother although you do have to pedal harder to turn the wider tires.
One of our Partners is Team Apex. They are an elite cycling team based out of New Richmond, WI and race bicycles across the Midwest. Recently 5 members of the team drove out to Colorado and at an elevation of 9,000 ft raced at the fat bike world championships. They did extremely well, Chris Stevens was their top finisher and came in second while the rest of the team followed close behind finishing no worse than twenty fourth. They beat out a former Olympian and a two-time Mexican national champion. Pretty amazing for a group out of WI.
Now, attention is turned to The 45NRTH Fat Bike Birkie and Team Apex will be defending their title at the Birke. This year one of Anderson’s own will be racing against Team Apex. We wish them all well and will be cheering them on.
